August 20, 2008

August 20/ LA apartment

In 1960 I was married, and it was also the year of my first Presidential election. Then the voting age was 21. I lived in a housing development in Los Angeles where it was built by a large insurance company. The development must have been nice in their fresh beginnings. When we lived there the apartments were just above seedy, but for newlyweds the apartments were open and spacious and had grass. One of the reasons that I am thinking about our first apartment is that it is currently very hot here, and it was very hot in that apartment. When we opened the windows, what we heard was Yiddish. There was a wash house, but no driers, and we hung the laundry out to dry. Someone stole all of my new trousseau underwear. They were regular panties as no self respecting girl at that time would own a thong.

The other reason I am thinking about that apartment is that last night I went to a political gathering, and about that more later. But in that time in Los Angeles, when I went to vote, I was the only Republican in my precinct. My husband at the time was registered as an Independent. Election day you can imagine my shock when outside the voting establishment I read the list, there were pages of Democrat names, and I was the only name on the Republican list. Even my husband was not the only Independent. The woman handed me my ballot in such a way that I felt she was saying, “so you’re the freak.”

The election was Kennedy and Nixon, and I had voted for Nixon. Our friends, another newly married couple, and we laid on Mr. Radish’s and my double bed, four abreast, (we were thin in those days) watching election returns, drinking beer, disgusted.